The Truth About the Rain
by Syrinx
Summary: Cindy must leave the UAE, even if it means leaving everything she loves. Sequel to Requiem, post-Cindy's Desert Adventure, Cindy/Ben angst.


The Truth about the Rain  
by Syrinx  
Summary: Cindy must leave the UAE, even if it means leaving everything she loves.  
A/N: Sequel to Requiem. Post-Cindy's Desert Adventure.

There was a fundamental beauty about the desert that Cindy never grew to learn. All she knew was the filmy coating of dust that clung to her arms and clothes whenever she went outside and how the dry heat of the sun bleached her already bright blond hair an extra shade of white. It was hot, gritty, uncomfortable, useless, and uninhabitable for her. Desolate was the desert, and Cindy had had her fill.

"What are you doing?" she heard a voice from the open doorway. For a moment she regretted not closing and locking the door as she dismantled what she had made of her room. During the better part of a year she had lived in the cramped space, but tearing it all down turned out to be harder than she had thought. It didn't help that she could barely see through her tears.

"Cindy," she heard him say her name quietly, with concern over seeing the salty lines running down her face. "What is it?"

"I'm leaving," she told him firmly, turning back to her large duffel bag to shove another shirt inside, another pair of breeches that had rarely been worn.

She heard him walk into the room, and she didn't have the strength inside to order him away from her. A fierce, warning scowl managed to stop him in his tracks, but he did not make any space between them. Benjamin al-Rihani, her Ben, stared at her with pained eyes.

"You're crying," he said, taking a step forward. "What do you mean you're leaving?"

"Don't," she warned him from taking another step in her direction. "I'm leaving, Ben. Okay? Do I really have to explain why?"

He looked at her cautiously, the muscle in his tight jaw jumping almost imperceptibly. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, feeling the wetness of tears smear over the dust that had been clinging to her desert tanned skin. Looking at him with bleary eyes she could tell immediately that he knew why she was leaving, but Benjamin al-Rihani, her professional, sleek, suave love, would deny everything.

"Please tell me what is wrong, and I will fix it," he told her. "Please, Cindy. I cannot have you leaving."

"Can't?" Cindy asked with a bitter laugh, shoving her tank tops into the small crevices of the already swelling duffel bag. "Let me ask you something, Ben. When was the last time someone asked me what I wanted to do?"

She saw that muscle in his jaw move slightly as he turned his eyes from her, whether in shame or acceptance. Cindy didn't care anymore.

"I told you I would talk to my father, Cindy," he began softly, trying to convince her of something she didn't hold hope in anymore. "You were fantastic on Wyndrake, but it will take more than a few rash statements for me to convince him…"

"Forget it," Cindy hissed angrily, pushing her underwear in among the rest of her things, hardly caring about the blush she caught on Ben's face. They were garments he had never seen, nor ever would, and just the thought that she had wanted him to spurred her on.

"I heard you," she said, zipping the duffel closed and tugging it to the floor.

"What?" he asked her, taken aback.

"I heard you," she repeated. "You were talking to your father about me. I'm only a woman, right? My place is bearing and rearing children, right? Be pretty and silent?"

"You listened to that?" Ben asked, breathless as though he could not believe what she said.

"Yes," Cindy told him, feeling another teardrop threatening to fall as she remembered the words all over again. "Of course I did, Ben."

"Cindy," he said, shaking his head and pushing forward now to grab her arm and turn her to face him.

"No," she shook her head, tears slipping over her face freely. "I don't want to hear what you have to say about it. They'll only be excuses."

"You don't understand," he shook his head, gripping her arms to keep her close to him.

"I do understand," Cindy insisted. "I don't belong here, and I never did. I was kidding myself thinking that I could come here and make something work with my life, or that I could make something work with you, even."

"Me?" he asked, as though he truly didn't know. Cindy only stared at him quietly, watching his dark eyes with her own. It was dim in the cramped room, and twilight was well past its peak. She could barely tell what color his eyes were, let alone attempt to read them.

Ben took a shaky breath, his fingers loosening a little on her upper arms.

"I did not think it was so serious," he said quietly.

"It was to me," Cindy shrugged, looking away when she couldn't bear to feel him looking at her.

It was too easy to give in to hopeless crushes and puppy love, especially when the man that sent shivers down her spine was drawing her closer with a hand against the small of her back.

She sniffled softly, trying to make herself stop crying and finding it impossible. Cindy was tired of working and fighting for something she didn't know would be there for her. Ben, Dubai, Champion, and her self-made future seemed to be slipping into oblivion, as though the last year of her life was dying like a childhood dream.

Cindy stiffened when she felt Ben slip a hand to her chin and turn her head to face him. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, sending warning signals through her exhausted body. Part of her wanted to collapse against him, and another part made her stand strong.

They had done these things, of course. Kissing in shadows and politely seeing each other when he was not on the business trip of the week had become the standard over the time she had been in Dubai. She felt his lips replace his fingers, but she quickly pushed away and took an unsteady breath. Cindy did not question his motives, and she wasn't going to give in because he had chosen to kiss her now in her stripped dark room. She didn't want to feel the last gasp of a dying dream.

"I have to go," she said, turning away from him to slip her few personal items into her bag. She saw her journal sitting by her bedside and felt embarrassed by the words she had written in it. Cindy quickly snatched it up and shoved it in her bag. "I've already booked a flight. I have to say goodbye to Champion. I just need to see him one last time."

"Cindy," he said, trying to touch her only to be warned off.

"I'm not so young and pliable anymore, Ben," she bit. "A year here has taught me enough."

"That is unfair, Cindy," he said, starting the fight she had not wanted to begin. "You cannot just tell me what you want and then leave."

"I can," Cindy shook her head, wiping her tears out of her eyes. "I practically already have."

"I want to make this work," he said. "I will stay here with you. I will…"

"You will what?" Cindy asked softly, starting to lose the will to fight with him. He looked desperate to keep her at arm length, but her face struck him silent.

"I came here for the wrong reasons," Cindy told him. "I thought I was here for Champion, when I wasn't. I thought I could make a life here as a jockey, when I knew I was going up against more opposition than I could handle. I thought I was here to be close to you, when I rarely saw you. Everything that I thought I was here for has turned out to be a failure, Ben. And I'm tired of failing."

"You're not failing, Cindy," he told her. "I am here now. I will get my father to listen to us. I can get you on another horse on the track if that makes you happy. Please stay here."

Cindy shook her head. "I can't let you do anything for me anymore, Ben. I have to do something for myself. I have to regroup. I can't be here."

"Cindy," he sighed. "Please reconsider this."

"I don't belong here," Cindy said, shaking her head. "Champion doesn't need me anymore, your father will never let me on one of his horses, and you never thought of me as I did you."

"You don't know that," he said softly, trying to draw her to him again.

"I know enough," Cindy said harshly, remembering his words and his beliefs. "I don't know you as well as I thought I did."

"What you heard," he tried. "That was not me. I respect your ambition and your talent. You must know that."

"Not anymore," she shook her head, pushing past him with her things and heading to the door. He followed, pulling her to a halt past the doorway. Cindy could see Champion's burgundy head hidden in the dusky barn, the glimmer of his coat catching on the soft exterior lights that beamed in through the windows. Her chest tightened at the thought of leaving the stallion, but when she looked back at Ben she fortified herself and shook loose.

"Don't," she told him before putting her bags on the floor and walking up to him, hugging him for a long moment. "Please understand me," she said against his chest. "I cannot be happy here. I can't wait and hope your father will take mercy on me. I'm better than that."

"Know that I want you to stay," he said, and she shook her head, pulling away.

"I know," she said, walking out into the aisle only to stop in front of the big red horse's stall. Champion ambled up to her and bumped her arm with his nose, inspecting her bags curiously. A fresh tear slipped down her check for the stallion, and she swallowed a sob as she ran her hand down Champion's thick neck in goodbye.

"Where can I look you up?" she heard Ben ask, giving in her.

"I'll be home at Whitebrook," she said. "I have to go home for a while."

"I'll call you," he promised.

"You shouldn't," Cindy told him softly, and he looked down at his expensive shoes. Cindy whispered a little nonsense into Champion's ear, smiling as he watched her, before bending and quickly kissing him on the nose. She heard the crunch of gravel as the cab she had called pulled up to the barn. It was time to leave, and Cindy reminded herself that she would not look back.

"We are fifth in line for takeoff," the crackle of the pilot's voice reminded Cindy as she sat in her window seat, looking out at JFK International's runway. "So just relax and we'll get in the air as soon as we can."

Cindy sat back in her seat, watching the rain as it poured over the city. Blinking lights ran along the tarmac, and New York rose in a spectacular flourish beyond. Everything was dark and blinding with light at the same time, but the rain dimmed everything with a curtain of cold, quiet somberness.

In Dubai, Cindy had rarely seen the rain. The seasons brought it over the summer, with quiet fits of sprinkles that made the desert less golden and only slightly greener. Here it drove to the ground as though it would never quit, slipping over the thick oval window in rivulets and splashing on the wings of the plane.

Cindy thought fleetingly of Ben, wondering what he was doing. She wondered if he would spend time with Champion, or immediately fly out to London on business. Part of her bitterly wondered if he would pick up the norm as though she had never been there.

She already missed it, as much as she didn't want to. Cindy missed waking up to the smells of horses in the barn she shared with her horse, and she missed the hope that she had once felt about riding the sheik's horses or taking Champion out to slip through the heat and harsh light on the sand dunes.

In her hands she clutched at the journal Samantha had given her for her birthday. She opened it, leafing slowly to the back and smoothing down a page. A pen was clutched in her hand, black Arabic letters she didn't understand were scrawled along the side. Cindy wrote the date on the page and just beneath it: I am in New York, heading home.

She couldn't put anymore down on paper, and as the plane began to move forward and right itself on the runway in preparation to take off, Cindy closed the book with a soft hiss of the pages slapping together and closed her eyes.

The plane whined and jumped forward, skimming over the tire-marked runway before lifting up gradually and taking flight. Cindy felt the jet rise into the air, bumping on the thunderheads and cutting through the rain. Cindy rested her forehead against the cool window and watched the rain clouds, slowly willing herself to sleep. Just as dawn peeked through the rain Cindy's eyes drifted closed, the journal slipping from her fingers to the floor.


End file.
